I was humble enough to ask
Good attitude towards learning and try never to lose that personal quality. A healthy dose of skepticism also goes a long way toward preventing mistakes based on faulty assumptions. As time goes on and as each new achievement is realized, your confidence in self will grow, yet should be tempered by the humility that can come only with experience. Humility and confidence can and do coexist in the best pilots I've known and flown with.
In that vein, I'll share a couple of experiences related to the thread topic.
We were flying into Boeing field (KBFI) in Seattle, WA and had just been issued a descent and a heading to intercept the final approach course for the ILS 31L. So we're turning and descending and it looks like we'll get all this done in time to capture the LOC and configure for approach with room to spare. There were layered cloud conditions and we were in and out of the clouds and into bright sunshine with excellent visibility every few seconds. What is known as a beautiful day in the Seattle area.
Just as the LOC came alive, we get a TCAS "climb" RA! Okay, nose and thrust up, we fly right into a big billowy cumulus cloud. After a few seconds, the PNF had notified ATC and ID'd the red traffic symbol on the MAP display as being behind us just as the "clear of conflict" message comes over the audio. Okay we agree. time to push back down to the last altitude and capture the LOC. Just then we fly out of the cloud and see a big runway right in front of us, perfectly lined up only a few miles away. Crap, we're pretty high to make the straight-in, but the nose is down and Hawkers descend very capably. We can make it.
I notice my partner squirming in his seat as he advises ATC of our intended return to the previously assigned altitude and it hits me. The damned LOC needle is full left, we'd flown through the LOC during the RA maneuver and were now right of course. That airport in front of us is NOT BFI* and we need to stop this descent at the assigned altitude and go get that LOC. Fortunately, this all happened such that capturing the altitude and LOC were easily accomplished in short order. But that moment of disorientation following the untimely RA had nearly distracted me into doing a very stupid thing. I was thankful that my flying partner's obvious discomfort had triggered my skepticism and prevented what could have become an unpleasant outcome. We laughed about it over beers and dinner later. Yeah, I understand how easily things like this can happen.
Fast forward 5 years and we're on vectors for a visual to San Jose, CA. (KSJC) This time I'm right seat for a guy doing his IOE in the Westwind. It's a little fuzzy but visibility is about 5 miles in the haze common to the area. It's near sunset though, and we really can't see much else but the cityscape. Only one of the long runways is open due to construction and no ILS is operative so we've got the SJC VOR tuned and the airport displayed on the GNS 530 for orientation. There is quite a few other planes on the freq and the controller is firing vectors out at machine gun pace. We did at least three heading changes and speed adjustments for sequencing. We've been instructed to follow a SWA 37 to the airport and can just make him out ahead of us. It looks like following him will have us intercepting a final for rwy 12R with about 4 or 5 miles to go. Just then ATC breaks us out with a new vector for re-sequencing.
After a couple more vectors, we're told the airport is ten o'clock and 5 miles, (at least that's what I
thought I'd heard. On reflection it could have been "nine" miles) report in sight. I spot an airport in front of us and ask the PF if he sees it. He agrees so I inform ATC and he clears us for visual approach and contact tower. The PF starts maneuvering to line up on the runway as he begins descending and calling for flaps and gear. I notice the DME indicating 8 miles and the KSJC symbol on the GPS map offset to the left. About now, I realize that the airport doesn't look right either. "Crap", says I,"those are the blimp hangars and that's Moffet field"! We turn left with a big blast of thrust and spot SJC followed by a normal landing. Luckily we'd never gotten that close to landing at Moffet and there was no activity there that day so once again no harm done.
But no further proof that mistakes always wait for any opportunity is needed! If fate is the hunter, then the complacent are the hunted. Constant vigilance born of skepticism and a desire never to make dumb mistakes are well complimented by habitual crosschecking and the employment of established error trapping procedures. And yet still it happens...
*the field I lined up on was Renton. (KRNT)